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China’s online army shows foreign brands who’s in charge
- Companies from Versace to Calvin Klein have been forced to apologise after being slammed by Chinese internet users for identifying Hong Kong as a country
- Chinese buyers account for at least a third of current luxury sales and two-thirds of the industry’s growth
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
As geopolitical storm clouds gather, China’s most powerful weapon may not be tariffs or riot police, but ordinary consumers at their keyboards.
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Beijing is increasingly finding itself under siege as US President Donald Trump’s trade war squeezes the world’s second-largest economy and protests in Hong Kong call into question China’s hold over the territory.
But as it has in the past, China is finding support from an increasingly nationalistic online community, who use the pitfalls of multinational companies to drive home their point.
A growing list of global brands, from Versace to Calvin Klein, have been forced to apologise in recent days after an army of Chinese internet users called them out for products and company websites that identified Hong Kong as a country, not as a city.
Chinese consumers have proved a potent force in pushing change on local issues such as tainted milk and substandard vaccines. But that same outrage can be just as powerful when applied to politics, with critical coverage in state-controlled media spurring internet users to call for boycotts on the country’s social media platforms.
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